Hi everyone,
I'm excited to share something I've been working on — a free, searchable directory of 1,211 plant species native to the Ottawa-Gatineau area.
As a nursery focused exclusively on locally native plants, one of our ongoing challenges is knowing the full range of what actually belongs here. To answer that, I compiled regional flora records, herbarium data, and iNaturalist observations to identify every plant species native to eastern North America that has been recorded wild or naturalized within 100km of Parliament Hill.
But I didn't stop at a species list. The directory lets you filter by sun exposure, moisture, soil chemistry, bloom time, and wildlife value — including pollinator data from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and butterfly & moth host plant records from HOSTS, A Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants. Each species also shows its provincial and national conservation rank from Wild Species 2020.
A few caveats: some entries — particularly height, spread, and soil requirements — still need review, and I'd welcome any corrections. If you spot an error, please let me know so I can keep improving it.
It works best on desktop but is usable on mobile too.
Note: I used AI as a tool to help build the filterable webpage and process the datasets, but all the data compilation, curation, and decisions about what to include were my own.